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Saturday, 13 October 2012

Removed the sticking out bit of foundation between kitchen and lounge, chucked the rubbish into the kitchen as infill.

Did same with sticking out bit of foundation between livingroom lounge

removed some more of the loose mortar and rubble / mud from bottom of wall

Used render/mortar to level it back up again since floor will be 10cm lower than previous.

All the old render went into the kitchen as infill.

This is the "spare" gravel left over as a result of sieving the aggregate for concrete, the fine stuff is used for mortar and there's no real use for the rest of gravel, so again, infill!

Levelled off with sand to right height.

And starting to concrete with reinforcing etc in place.

just a picture showing the electricity cables and ducts bedded in mortar to stop people hitting them by accident, there's another 10cm of insulation to go ontop of the concrete once done and then another 60mm of screed over the underfloor heating, so its really just a reminder that the cables are there.

And all done and drying.

Bit between livingroom and lounge just to make it smooth so the insulation will go in continuously without any bumps between the two rooms.

cleaned up the corner stones so they look somewhat pretty

Damp proof coursing at bottom of wall..

And my beautiful natural stone wall being built, takes a fair old time since you can only do 20 or 30cm before you need to wait for it to set, so it means its taken quite a few days, but it also means I can concentrate on other things.

Walls were washed down and scrubbed to remove the old paint as much as possible so the render has a chance of gripping it better.

Corner where old wall meets new wall all filled in and levelled out again.

Wall slowly creeping up..

Used the polystyrene anchors to anchor two ytong blocks into place above the door and used "glue" (Basically a sort of cement stuff) to dot and dab them into place and relatively straight.
Then just continued upwards.

Levelled off the bit above the window ready to be renderred with the rest of the wall.

Still going up slowly..

Spent absolute AGES trying to connect the final bit of the sewer up in the bathroom

Since I layed the pipe end first working back to the inspection chamber, I needed a sleeve joint to connect it up. Having used these joints before you'd think it would be no issue at all, simply cut the pipe to size, slide the sleeve joint over the pipe, put the pipe in place and slide the joint back off the pipe and halfway onto the adjoining one.
Well, in theory, that's what you'd think... having lubed the pipe and the o-rings up with oil, sliding the first rubber seal onto the pipe with ease and then up to the second seal, getting ready to simply put the pipe down and slide it back off again to join it... then discovering it won't come back off for some reason, spending 1 hour++ hitting it with a hammer. without it budging, managing to remove the whole pipe from the next joint by accident... then giving up and getting a NEW pipe and a NEW joint (Same manufacturer) which also slides on with ease, but all of 5 seconds later I can't get it to come off again, found a larger 125mm pipe to slide over it and really hammer home against it... no joy..
Stuck it in the vice and tried to get it to come off, no joy.. and gave up.
And that was another hour..

Went to the store the next day to get a WAVIN joint instead, Had to cut the old joint off with a hacksaw and split it open, there was literally less than a milimeter between the pipe wall and the joint, so I suspect it gets sucked vaccuum or something silly.

Anyhow, got the WAVIN one on lubed up and in place in all of 5 minutes.. And the "PESTAN" ones I wasted 2 pieces, 1 length of pipe and 2 hours on, and couldn't get it to do the job..

Picture of a stuck joint on a pipe, PESTAN one..

And wall is almost at top!

Cut holes for Electrics, TV and Network cable in ytong, works beautifully with the hole drill..

And the same idea but Electrics, Telephone and network into old walls.. not so great..

And the wall has reached its final height.

Light switch was decided to go between lounge/livingroom and since there is a lightswitch on the other side too, I've drilled a hole straight through the pillar into the other box on the other side.
Concrete was pretty tough to get through so it must have been made properly!!

And after LOTS of dust and angle grinder... channels going up, ignore the bit at the top, its where the old tubing for the electrics was, it decided to part company when I tried to remove a tiny little bit of tubing.

And in ytong.. with a fraction of the dust and super duper easy to channel out using the channeling tool, Simply make 2 cuts with diamond blade on angle grinder and use the tool to remove the material.

And next to the door, 1 lower socket and 1 light switch.

Also made a start on the boiler platform room since its been 3 weeks since the concrete was poured.

Tuesday, 2 October 2012

removed shuttering from platform overhang so it can cure properly. That's a fair old lump of concrete hanging in space!

Start of second part of wall...

Bitumen paper melted down into place as damp proof coursing.

wall built up and around the pilar...

the gap behind the wall, being filled with mortar and offcuts of ytong.

Slowly going uwpards and around the window.

and up and up..

this is the other wall.

decided to fill in all the open corners in livingroom where new wall meets old..

Made a start on another corner which requires looots of mortar to render it back up.

And the bedroom where old wall meets new..

Started using these brackets also to keep the blockwork from becoming wonky..
They are plasterboard brackets for the metal framework, simply wiggle them and they snap in two, then bend them up.

hammer a screw into place into a recess on the bits of ytong, and then backfill with mortar and it ties the blockwork to the mortar behind.

added some reinforcing material to the top of the window since it would be a fair depth of material dangling there without any reinforcing.

last few blocks in place and first pass of mortar to build it back up..

The door had been mounted squint resulting in an excess of 2cm on the right above the door, and a lack of about 4cm on the left of the door, so needed to be built back up to make it "straight" relative to the door.. bit by bit.. this is after two passes building it back up lump by lump..

And the next day after its all set out and another pass and floated it flat with trowel, looks pretty straight now, ready for top coat of render, and the corner reinforcing above the door.

removed all the loose rubbish and soil from the bottom fo the wall in the livingroom and filled it back in with mortar as the old floor was approx 15cm higher than it will be when finished.

channeled out a section for the main electricity, its switching wire and the new garage electrics to sit into, in the kitchen, so I can do the floor in there hopefully some time this week.

And plastered back up with gypsum, just hope nobody drills a hole through it!! Might be a bit exciting.